Re: Documentation for car and cdr

From:

David Kastrup

Subject:

Re: Documentation for car and cdr

Date:

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 00:53:11 +0100

User-agent:

Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux)

"Richard M. Stallman" <address@hidden> writes:
> Return the car of cons cell CONS. If arg is nil, return nil.
> Error if arg is not nil and not a cons cell. See also `car-safe'.
>
> How about this:
>
> Return the car of cons cell (or list) CONS. If arg is nil, return nil.
> Error if arg is not nil and not a cons cell. See also `car-safe'.
No, I liked, if at all, Alan's last suggestion better. Your wording
suggests that a cons cell and a list are different things, but a cons
cell. And I think "car of a list" strange terminology, anyway. Lists
have elements, not cars. I'd talk about "car of a cons" and "first
element of a list".
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum